Why TED Global rocked

Experienced bloggers are by nature a questioning lot. A less kind person would call us a cynical lot. You tell us something, we will question it. You raise a point, we will debate it. You lie, you will eventually get caught, usually by another blogger who notices inconsistencies. Like a girl on a first date, we are not easily impressed. To remix that old quote, you can fool one blogger one time, but you canâ€™t fool all the bloggers all the time.

Experienced bloggers are by nature an articulate lot. We spend hours each week not just telling but analysing whatever we find important. It is vital that we are able to put our point across to our readers. We defend our positions, usually by employing intellectual debate. Experienced bloggers are generally not dazzled by your personality, popularity, or prosperity. We want to hear what you have to say and we will judge you on that basis.

In my experience there are a couple of reasons why I had a fantastic time.

I am not alone.

I lie in bed sometimes thinking about Kenya and Africa and I can not sleep because my head starts feeling like it is about to explode. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? In what way can I be most helpful? Where do we even begin? At TED Global I was in a whole room of people who go through the same thing. Young people across the continent who have a passion about this motherland called Africa that really surpasses all logic. They see what you are doing, you see what they are doing and suddenly you realise that you are not alone, and you do not have to do it alone. Instead of wondering if we will ever rise, now I am like, there is no way, absolutely no way that anyone can keep us down. The next 20 years will not be like the last 20 years, that I can guarantee you. In 2027 this will be the most linked post on Mentalacrobatics and you can all start calling me prophet!

The explosion of ideas and learning.

What a speaker line up. You walked out of the room rubbing your head wondering how you are going to process all that knowledge. Next time you bump into one of those idiots who starts asking you questions like, â€œwhere is the African Mozart, or where is the African Brunel, implying that Africans do not think send them a copy of Ron Eglash’s study of fractals in African architecture and watch their heads explode as they try to understand just what the hell is going on, and that is just one of many many examples that were shared at this conference. Sending txt messages in Amharic, no problem, want to build a computer that thinks like a brain, easy peasy.

The 1958 feeling.

This is the big one for me. I have often wondered how it would have felt to attend THE pan African conference of all pan African conferences, The All-African People’s Conference in Accra in 1958 as the wind of independence was sweeping over the continent. How exhilarating it must have felt to watch freedom galloping over the horizon coming closer and closer as one colonial power after another was kicked out. But I wondered more about how powerful it must have been to walk into a room and you have all those brains there, all those visionaries in one place at one time. Imagine standing in the queue for lunch and you see Nyerere chatting with Lumumba or W.E.B DuBois sharing a knock-knock joke with Nkrumah or something like that. At TED Global I got that same buzz, you got the sense that there were people in that room that would revolutionise this continent. Now you know why I was smiling strangely at all of you at lunch at TED, I was trying to figure out which one of you was Nyerere and which one was Lumumba, who would be DuBois and who Nkrumah! In the 1958 conference they elected a young man called Tom Mboya from Kenya as their chairman, in his summing up speech he called for a reversal of the Scramble for Africa addressing the colonial powers thus:

“Your time has past, Africa must be free. Scram from Africa.”

Substitute colonial powers then for your pet hate today. Corruption, nepotism, tribalism, maybe even neo-colonialism? Whatever it is, tell it to scram from Africa. Like 50 years ago, change must come and change is in the air and that change is unavoidable. But we have learnt the lessons of 50 years ago, this time the pact between African leaders and African people must be paramount.

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Comments

man, envy!!! wish i could attend that conference – the deadline passed me like a jet! yet, am glad you gained tremendously from it – this is quite an inspiring blog. Lol, the Kwames, Nyereres of tommorow! It’s true, great minds meet up at such places and isn’t it amazing that one day you’d be able to say i met this guy this place – or someone saying that about you. Revolution starts within and as Ory also put it, we should stop complaining and start acting on our dreams. Thanks again for revolutionizing my day!

Marazzma! I still remember how you picked you picked up that prize that was reserved for Portuguese speakers or something at Highway Africa! And remember that â€œumelala sanaâ€ song that the South African band was playing. Next time nitakushow early so you do not miss the deadline, your creativity would have been a welcome addition in Arusha!

please do something about the sploggers on KBW. i dont see the need of trolls posting peoples articles 10 times a day without even providing a link. Hi ni upuzi. This is a social network. tell them to stick to their spam where it dont shine.

Alexcia your comment highlights what I feel is one of the big problems facing us as Africans today. You are watching to see if this is all hogwash. So what if it is? So what if every single TED Global Fellow ends up disappointed. And in the same way so what if every single TED Global Fellow ends up bring about positive change. At the end of the day 100 people can not destroy this continent on their own and can not building it on their own. What we need is a movement of committed and focused men and women full of integrity.

To employ an increasingly used phrase ask yourself, what have YOU done for Africa lately? There will be absolutely no point in 20 years time pulling out a report card for TED Global fellows, cant you see that is way bigger than the 100 Fellows who were invited to TED Global?

Instead of seeking to destroy with undue negativity, build something. All you need is a computer and access to the internet to start making changes in this world. Like one of the speakers said at TED said, the internet allows us to compete with any one else in the world brain for brain. Surely you can work with that. Or if ICT is not your thing then focus on what is.

STOP WATCHING, STOP COMPLAINING, START ACTING. The buck does not stop with TED Global, with me, the buck stops with you. Just like in my world, the buck stops with me.

How true. Hogwash or not, TED Global â€™07 was the kind of brainstorming and networking motor Africa has needed for a long time. One major challenge is for Africa to shift its expectations away from others. Aid from the West or China is not the only solution. Africans need to feel they are part of the answer. We need to be empowered to contribute to the solution. TED Global in Tanzania did just that, by acknowledging that Africa is capable of playing for itself. We will be battered and bruised in the process, but need to get up and play on, not just launching good initiatives then abandoning them in their infancy. Africa is on a roll right now. We mustnâ€™t forget that today, for every African failure, there is a steady stream of successes.

Aish
All I said is we need to start living more for today. And stop being embarrased or apologetic or making other people feel ashamed.
I believe in letting people do what they want to do…today! That may be drinking beer or making babies, it is their choice!
If you want to do stuff on the net do it because you want to. Not because of some grand scheme to save the continent and stuff like that.
I wouldn’t mind if you did something because mental wanted to do it.
Nway this is not stuff to discuss on your blog

Well I think the 100 fellows are just multipliers to transport the message to the masses (~ like on this blog) among other things. What we need are ppl willing to take the risk of coming back home, and if it takes an elite conference such as TED to refocus on our beloved continent, then I am not having any problems with that. MY favourite moment was Bono meeting Ayittey, and without the KBW crew around, we wouldnt know about it.

(and I am sure the TED Mac or PC notebook is already promised to various members of the extended family :-)

That particular 1958 feeling btw is why I registerd uhuru.de and umoja.de some years ago :-)

TEDGLOBAL asserted resoundingly that even one ordinary person (like me) can make a difference. See BETUMI’s Africa Cookbook Project, launched in Arusha (June 25 posting at http://www.betumi.com/blog.html)